Cold Hands, Warm Heart
by Miss Peg
Summary: When Rigsby reads a note he wasn't meant to see, the cracks in his friendship with Van Pelt begin to show.
1. Cold Hands

**Title: Cold Hands, Warm Heart**

**Author: **Miss_Peg/RedFi

**Disclaimer: **I don't own The Mentalist, I just like to play with the characters.

**Summary: **When Rigsby reads a note he wasn't meant to see, the cracks in his friendship with Van Pelt begin to show.

**Spoilers: **Spoilers for 5x03 (Not One Red Cent)

**Notes: **This was written for **bromfieldhall **for the Paint It Red Stocking Swap Gift Exchange. When I saw the prompt, I just had to have a play. This is going to be a two part fic, but I wanted to get part one up as quickly as I could.

**Cold Heart**

The office had emptied; Lisbon was in a meeting with Bertram about the replacement for Wainwright, Cho had left early for a dentist appointment and Jane and Van Pelt had gone out to dinner. Rigsby wasn't sure of the circumstances surrounding such a situation but he figured that the bet placed between the two of them was being fulfilled. Going home was the preferred option himself, but Benjamin was teething and Sarah had a massive case on at work. Her mom had picked Benjamin up from daycare and as far as she was concerned, Rigsby had to work, so he relished in a couple of hours of freedom.

He sat down at his desk, a mug of coffee on one side and a newspaper in front of him. It didn't happen often enough anymore, the simple act of enjoying a moment reading the paper. The whole thing was depressing, but the familiarity of it was enough. He even decided that he'd do the crossword, talking to a baby most days left him with a brain of mush. Despite the demands of the job, he still felt the need to question witnesses in the way he talked to his son.

'Four across, medium…middle? No, too short.' He rested his pen in his mouth, nibbling ever so slightly on the end of it. 'Psychic! Thanks Jane.'

A bite too hard and the pen exploded across his mouth, he opened wide and stuck his tongue out, the taste of ink making him feel nauseous. He threw the pen into his trashcan and searched his desk for another.

'Well done Wayne, break the only pen you have.' He walked across to the kitchenette to wash his mouth out, he glanced at his reflection in the back of a spoon and though it appeared there was only a little dark smudge on the edge of his lip, it still felt as though he was ingesting it somehow. 'Now I've gotta find another pen.'

He wandered back to the bullpen and his crossword via Van Pelt's desk. She always had spare pens, in fact, if he didn't know any better, he'd have sworn she had the whole office's supply of pens too. There were six in a holder alone. He took one, then thinking better of it, took a second for safe keeping.

'Pen Velt more like,' he mumbled, stopping in his tracks as his eyes fell upon a notepad sitting face up on the desk. 'What the…?'

He held it up in front of his face and read his name followed by an expletive. Either Van Pelt knew he was stealing her pens (doubtful considered he usually asked her first) or something else was going on that he didn't know about. Regardless, the thought of her harsh words left him with feelings of anger.

He jotted a quick note below the message, returned to his desk and continued with his crossword.

The next morning when Van Pelt entered the bullpen she expected the cheery smiles of her colleagues. Cho was looking worse for wear after his dental appointment and Rigsby barely glanced at her.

'Morning,' she said, trying to make polite conversation but she got barely a grunt from the boys, much to her irritation.

'Good morning Grace,' she muttered in a mock tone. Cho sighed and disappeared from the room with an offering of a coffee; she accepted and went to goad Rigsby out of his sullen mood.

'What's wrong? Little Ben keeping you up still?'

He glanced up at her briefly, his eyes frosty, before he lowered them again. His lack of words confused her. So she returned to her desk, turned on her computer and checked her emails. It wasn't until she went to note down an address that she spotted Rigsby's careless scrawl across her notepad, below a message she couldn't remember writing.

Then it hit her, the writing trick that Jane had showed her. Why hadn't she noticed that Rigsby's name had been written above such a frustrated message to Jane? The fact he wrote something similar in return added to his silence suggested he'd seen her notepad.

'Wayne,' she whispered, looking up, but he still didn't take his gaze from his work. She sighed heavily and carried the notepad to his desk. 'Can we talk about this?'

'There's nothing to talk about,' he said through gritted teeth.

'Yes, there is,' she tried.

'Really, Grace?' he stood up, pushing his chair back with such force that it hit the desk behind him. 'You want to talk about how you have the decency to act like nothing has happened?'

'It's not what it looks like.'

Rigsby laughed loudly. 'Oh really? That's what people say when they've been caught.'

'Why don't you listen to me instead of jumping to conclusions?'

'Why should I?' he shouted, his hands on his hips.

'Because it wasn't meant for you.'

He shook his head. 'Didn't mean for me to see it, more like.'

'Can I at least explain?'

'No, Grace, you know what. I stand by what I wrote on your pad. That's all I have to say to you.'

She watched him sit back down and continue with his work, his lips pressed together tightly and his fist clenched on his desk. Van Pelt tried to speak, but words escaped her. The last thing she ever wanted from that situation was for Rigsby to think she was being horrible. But without him listening to her, what else could she do?

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, her eyes filling with tears which she quickly wiped away. She would not cry over this, she couldn't. She was an adult who had made a small mistake, despite Rigsby's reaction; it wasn't her fault that he wouldn't listen to her.


	2. Warm Heart

**Notes: **Thanks to tromana, Katrina, Kourion, aekz and HannahbananaJane for the reviews. I hope you enjoy the second and final part of this little ditty.

**Warm Heart**

The atmosphere in the bullpen had reached a record high. Van Pelt sat at her desk checking motel addresses, cautiously glancing over at Rigsby as he made phone call after phone call. Being in such close proximity with someone who, near enough, hated her was anything but comfortable. The fact it was Rigsby only made the situation all the worse.

'I've got some more numbers for you,' she said, placing a sheet of Xerox paper on Rigsby's desk beside him. He glanced up at her with a brief grunt of acknowledgement.

Van Pelt sighed and returned to her desk with her tail between her legs. The last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt him, she still cared very deeply for him, after all. He was the closest thing she had come to a solid, steady relationship. What had happened since, with her engagement to Craig O'Laughlin, was neither here nor there. She recognised how flawed that relationship had been.

If only she'd had the same hindsight earlier before Rigsby had moved on and got another woman pregnant. Not that any of that would have changed the issue of workplace relationships.

'Anyone want a drink?' Van Pelt asked but Rigsby didn't even glance up from the list of motels she'd handed him earlier.

'I'll have a coffee, thanks Van Pelt,' said Cho, a sympathetic smile passed across his face and he directed his eyes to Rigsby.

The messiness of office politics had never been much of a problem in the SCU, something which Van Pelt had always been grateful for. Unfortunately, things between herself and Rigsby were impacting their co-workers and that was something she couldn't forgive herself for.

She made herself an herbal tea and after delivering Cho his coffee, she took her notepad back into kitchenette in order to prepare one for Rigsby. Whether he wanted a drink or not, he was getting one by way of an apology.

Van Pelt scribbled down a brief message, ripped the sheet of paper from the pad and carried the items back into the bullpen. She stopped in the doorway, watching as Rigsby spoke on the phone. His voice made her smile, that carefree, jokey tone that he had so often used in her presence. She missed his company more with the lack of it, not just the relationship, but his friendship too. Things hadn't been the same since he became a father.

'This is for you,' she said, placing the mug of coffee down on Rigsby's desk with the note. He stared down at her offering and said nothing.

He needed time to ingest her apology, to understand what had happened, and she wasn't about to rush him anytime soon.

The piece of paper sat on the corner of Rigsby's desk for some time before he finally glanced at it. The coffee had been happily consumed, though he'd never admit it to Van Pelt, he'd been dying for a hit of caffeine all morning.

When she disappeared out of the bullpen in search of some lunch, Rigsby pulled the sheet towards him. He glanced down at Van Pelt's cursive script and he was reminded of all of the notes she'd sent him when they were together; love notes, poems, even dirty messages from time to time. Then there were the cards for his birthday or Christmas.

He kept them in a box in the attic marked as important documents to avoid arousing Sarah's suspicions. He played a dangerous game keeping old love letters from his most recent ex-girlfriend, but he'd never found the strength to let go of that part of his life. Least not because Van Pelt was in it almost every day.

'Wayne Rigsby, Love You,' he muttered, reading off the sheet of paper as he held it up in front of him. He allowed his brows to furrow and glanced back towards Van Pelt's desk. He could never quite understand what was going on inside Van Pelt's head anymore. Once upon a time he knew her as well as Jane knew his memory palace and now, he couldn't even distinguish truth from his own warped perception. Of course the whole incident had been caused by Jane, that shouldn't have surprised him in the slightest. Why he hadn't believed Van Pelt, he didn't quite know.

When she returned to the office she ignored him, which was the last thing he expected her to do. She didn't even glance across to see if he'd read her note, he folded it up into a neat square and slipped it into his pocket. Another one for his Grace box.

He took a deep breath and pushed his chair back in order to stand up, then he walked across the room with a sheepish expression on his face. Rigsby hated being wrong, but there was something about the comfortable feeling between himself and Van Pelt that made it feel so much easier, somehow.

'Grace,' he whispered, standing beside her desk. She ignored him for a moment, until he repeated her name a little louder, then she looked up at him with a wide smile, which he emulated quickly. 'Do I have permission to punch Jane in the gonads?'

Van Pelt laughed lightly, her smile reaching her eyes. 'I wouldn't mind doing it myself, but I can't imagine Lisbon would okay it.'

'So, we're good?'

'We're good,' said Van Pelt, nodding her head.

'Good.'

Rigsby turned to walk away, the list of tasks he still had to complete before he could go home was longer than he liked. Then he turned back, a slight frown spread across his features.

'One thing I don't quite understand, why did you write my name in the first place?'

'I thought I said in the note?' said Van Pelt. 'Jane asked me to write a name.'

'No, I got that,' he muttered. 'But why _my_ name?'

'Oh.'

Van Pelt frowned and looked down at her keyboard. Rigsby waited patiently as she appeared to mull over her answer. His reason for asking was not yet clear even to himself, nor did he know what he hoped to achieve from bringing up such a subject.

Finally, Van Pelt lifted her gaze back onto him, that soft, sweet smile returning.

'I'm not sure, yours was the first name that popped into my head.'

Rigsby nodded his head and returned to his desk. As he tried to refocus and complete his tasks, he found himself glancing over at Van Pelt. Her answer was everything he'd assumed it would be and yet, he wasn't quite sure how he felt about it.

**The End**


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